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LOCHANDHU.

CHAPTER I.

Prythee, see there! behold! look! lo! how say you?

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ABOUT fifty years ago, on a delightful evening in June, when the soft summer sky was reflected from the bosom of a calm sea, a gay pleasure yacht, of about sixty tons burden, was sailing along the bold coast defending the entrance of one of those numerous friths, indenting the north-east of Scotland. Whilst several ships, in the distance, lay almost motionless, like specks

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amidst the clear grey shadow, that, deepening into an intense blue, was gradually settling over the face of the ocean, a gentle breeze filled her white canvas, and kept her gaudy streamers on the stretch. She seemed, indeed, to have wooed and won the favouring zephyr exclusively to herself; for, as is often the case with such light winds, it blew partially over a narrow stripe of the water in her course, producing a slight rippling line along the surface, and lifting, as it passed onwards, a thousand wavelets to be gilded by the declining beams of a glorious sunset.

Having kept a little off shore to clear a bold headland, she tacked, stood in for the lovely little bay it protected, and then dropped her anchor within its sheltered amphitheatre, where the lofty and precipitous wall of surrounding rock promised perfect safety from every blast.

A small boat, fancifully painted, was now lowered from her side, and pushed off for the beach, that formed a broad shelving pebbly margin between the sea and the base of the cliffs. It was rowed by six seamen, uniformly dressed in blue jackets and white trowsers, and having leathern caps on their heads, with the word

"Dasher" emblazoned in large letters of gold on their fronts. It was steered by a bulky, and rather elderly man, wearing something resembling the undress costume of a naval captain of the day, and whose hardy countenance, rusted by the action of various climates, displayed a certain air of habitual command. In the bow sat a young man wrapped up in a large boat-cloak, who, as soon as the prow touched the land, jumped actively ashore, and throwing his cumbrous covering to a servant, exhibited a tall handsome person, clad in a green hunting dress, peculiarly calculated to display his finely-proportioned figure. On his head he wore an upright cap of dark brown fur, decorated by a broad and rich gold band, and his luxuriantly curled black hair and whiskers gave shade to his fair, untarnished, yet manly face; as the perfect arch of his ample eyebrows added to the beauty and nobleness of his forehead, and gave fire to his large, full, and intelligent eyes. In his hand he held a Spanish gun, of rare and curious workmanship, and his shoulders were belted with the apparatus of a sportsman. light couteau-de-chasse hung by his side from a

belt of green velvet, ornamented with gold, and his companion, who landed with somewhat less agility, was armed with a large cutlass, depending from a broad belt of black leather.

"Well, Amherst Oakenwold, my boy!" said the elder stranger to his friend, slapping him familiarly on the shoulder as he spoke, "here we are in canny Scotland! Have I not been as good as my word? Have I not whistled you from the Downs hither in first-rate style, and hasn't the little Dasher done her duty?—What a thing for lying near the wind !there a better put together parcel of planks !— I'll be bound to steer her all round the world and back again, without starting a single timber."

-never was

"I must admit, Cleaver," replied the other, stretching himself, and moving his limbs, as if delighted to escape from the confinement to which he had for some days been subjected, "that your little yacht is the perfection of pleasure vessels, and yourself the most expert, the steadiest, and the boldest of captains; nor will I now deny that you have a perfect right to exercise all that despotic control you are wont

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